Daniel Bryan's 7 Most Memorable Moments.

#5: Money In The Bank win and cash-in

Daniel Bryan win the World championship!

On July 2011, Bryan won the Money in the Bank briefcase, earning him a title shot within the next year. This was a huge moment, as it was the first time that WWE showed faith in Bryan to be more than an Indy-darling fan favourite in the middle of the card.

At that point, no one had ever cashed in Money in the Bank and failed to win the title, so this was the next best thing to actually putting the title on Bryan. The fans had already taken to Bryan by this point, but to see that the WWE brass did have some faith in Bryan to be the main event player only stoked the fire for Bryan’s fans, as it showed that their guy might actually get a shot in the land of the giants. Little did they know just how giant the main event scene would be when Bryan finally arrived.

After winning Money in the Bank, Bryan claimed that he would be the first man to cash in the title at Wrestlemania. After his big win, though, Bryan embarked on a worrisome cold streak, losing matches regularly on Television despite supposedly being primed for a World Title run because of the briefcase.

This caused many fans to worry that Bryan would become the first man to cash in the briefcase and lose, especially considering the World Heavyweight Champion at the time was Mark Henry, who was at the peak of his monster heel run.

Bryan, still a face at the time, began to toy with the idea of cashing in the title earlier than Wrestlemania, primarily at the urging of the number one contender to Henry’s title, The Big Show.

Bryan actually successfully cashed in on Henry after Big Show had knocked out the World’s Strongest Man, but the match was thrown out after Mark Henry was ruled medically unable to compete. The crowd’s reaction to Bryan’s near-win was electric, though, and had to give WWE’s decision makers added confidence in putting the title on the undersized Bryan.

At TLC, Bryan finally pulled the trigger successfully, taking the title off the newly crowned (and unconscious) Big Show before celebrating around the ring like John Cena finding a two-for-one jorts sale. Bryan would continue to win matches in fluky or underhanded ways and then celebrate like Kool and the Gang for weeks, slowly turning him heel (kind of).

These over the top celebrations would eventually lead to one of the most famous chants in WWE history. Daniel Bryan had finally made it further than many ever thought he would, reaching the top of the WWE mountain, but it would take him getting unceremoniously kicked off for his star to reach levels even he could have never expected.